Reply to Kenyon, "Are Differences in the Oral Microbiome Due to Ancestry or Socioeconomics?"

Yaohua Yang,Jirong Long,Qiuyin Cai,Seth R Bordenstein,Zhigang Li,Robert Brucker,William J Blot,Xiao-Ou Shu,Wei Zheng,Zhiheng Pei,Mark Steinwandel,Martha J Shrubsole

doi:10.1128/msystems.00891-19

Abstract

We thank Dr. Kenyon for his careful reading of our paper ([1][1], [2][2]). First, he speculated that the differences in relative abundance of the 13 most common taxa between European-Americans (EAs) and African-Americans (AAs) may be due to inadequate control of covariates. Then, he expressed

Highlights

We thank Dr Kenyon for his careful reading of our paper [1, 2]
He speculated that the differences in relative abundance of the 13 most common taxa between European-Americans (EAs) and African-Americans (AAs) may be due to inadequate control of covariates. He expressed concerns on the measurement of periodontal health. He conjectured that the higher prevalence of four periodontal bacteria among AAs than EAs may be due to the fact that dental caries was more common in AAs and populations with lower income and poorer education [3–5]
To address his first remark, we investigated the associations between the common taxa and ancestry, stratified by age (40 to 60 years and 60 to 80 years), gender, annual household income (Ͻ$15,000 and Ն$15,000), education (Ͻhigh school and Նhigh school), smoking, and tooth loss, respectively

Summary

Family Micrococcaceae Genus Rothia Species Rothia mucilaginosa

5.92 ϫ 10Ϫ12 3.68 ϫ 10Ϫ5 2.57 ϫ 10Ϫ5 6.58 ϫ 10Ϫ10 5.81 ϫ 10Ϫ5 4.18 ϫ 10Ϫ4 3.66 ϫ 10Ϫ10 3.85 ϫ 10Ϫ5 4.00 ϫ 10Ϫ4 4.97 ϫ 10Ϫ9 1.55 ϫ 10Ϫ5. 1.95 ϫ 10Ϫ9 8.40 ϫ 10Ϫ8 1.90 ϫ 10Ϫ3 1.39 ϫ 10Ϫ7 3.81 ϫ 10Ϫ6 4.04 ϫ 10Ϫ3 1.04 ϫ 10Ϫ7 2.54 ϫ 10Ϫ6 3.90 ϫ 10Ϫ3 1.02 ϫ 10Ϫ6 2.20 ϫ 10Ϫ5 7.22 ϫ 10Ϫ3

Family Peptostreptococcaceae

Treponema denticola